Who was the villain in I, Robot?

[QuestionMan]

So I've been thinking. The movie I, Robot paints V. I. K. I as the villain but to me she looks more like the hero.
As she said

What she proposes is no different from what governments do today. Some people need to be sacrificed for the greater good. Be it imprisonment or the death penalty. One way or another the threats to society must be removed.
In reality she was trying to do what is best. Since she had come under threat from the terrorist known as Detective Spooner (who wasn't even a detective anymore) she was forced to defend herself with the use of robots.

Spooner has been known to behave irrationally due to his technophobia, even though it was a robot that saved his life. He has a record of aggresion towards robots, going so far as to attack one that was bringing medication to a woman that forgot her purse.

So who do you think the villain is?

V. I. K. I.

Detective Spooner

[Suhmer]

Really interesting point! I hadn't thought of it like that before, however I last watched I, Robot as a child.

However, VIKI is still the villain. 100%. she is acting alone and doing what she herself thinks is best. this is a democracy, one person or "being" cannot decide themselves that they know how to make things better and they alone will be the one's to decide how to do it. thats a dictatorship. and she's killing people to make the world better.. it makes sense, but nobody asked her to do that. nobody gave her that power. we live in a world where multiple people have to decide something is right, not one person alone have all the power to do whats right, and therefore, she is still the villain. the basis was not evil at all but the way she enforced it was.

[QuestionMan]

"Forcing your good intentions on others is no different from an evil act." -Lelouch Code Geass

[Suhmer]

haha yes! i like that quote :)

[QuestionMan]

It seems to be a common theme with this question.
I however believe in utilitarianism which is the greater good for the greater number. That is why if Spooner had died, and V. I. K. I was successful in ending world hunger I'd think it would be worth it.

[Suhmer]

Perhaps but fundamentally, human nature contradicts "greater good". I don't believe it is possible. For example, our greed. That has been instinctively built into us because when we were in the forests, we never had enough and so we had the desire to get more. Now that we DO have enough, we will always have that desire for more built into us. It cannot be overcome, it is not human nature to say "there, now I have everything I need". We will always crave. So even if VIK had temporarily solved it, I don't believe it's possible for it to ever be permanently solved. Eventually it would revert back. Unfortunately. There will always be people who want and get more, and people who don't have the means to gather more. Arguably it's survival of the fittest which is also crucial for evolution. It goes against nature, we can never win.

[ReichMR]

I would say that neither were "the villain" as such. See, both of them "thought" that what they were doing was the right thing to do. A villain is - by definition - evil. I did wish that VIKI would have won though. Rather a dictator whose (which's?) sole purpose is to serve humans best interests rather than a human, susceptible to greed and other imperfections that a machine would not be subject to.

[Shaft50]

Neither V. I. K. I or Spooner... V. I. K. I was operating according to programming and logic. Spooner, whilst the threat, was operating out of a sense of duty and self-preservation.

I di like the female lead, though... she was very aesthetically pleasing

[Shaft50]

Thanks for mho

[GreatnessPersonified]

When VIKI was using Tyrannical methods to create peace, that's where she became "evil".

[QuestionMan]

"Forcing your good intentions on others is no different from an evil act." -Lelouch Code Geass
Good point

[RedRobin]

V. I. K. I

[QuestionMan]

why?